Strawberry Avalanche
DAMMIT I SUCK AT WRITING! THIS WORD DOC I'M WRITING ON HAS 425 PAGES WORTH OF IDEAS BUT NONE OF THEM ARE PUBLISHED BECAUSE I CAN'T WRITE WELL. I LIST LOADS OF IDEAS AND HAVE THOUSANDS OF NOTES ON WHATEVER ORIGINAL FLEETING IMAGE I GOT BUT WHEN I GOT DOWN TO WRITE IT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW – THIS IS FRUSTRATING! I'M SUPPOSED TO WRITE MY HARRY POTTER / DANNY PHANTOM CROSSOVER BUT BECAUSE OF MY BLAND ACTION WRITING SKILLS I GET BORED F-CENCORED WHY?
Desperately need a beta who would be able to add some words, humor, insert some ideas, help get the stories going, preferably have a good eye on developing sarcastic jokes and fighting tactics or mystery or deduction.
Summary : When one Hinata Shouyou is best friends with Momoi Satsuki… and inevitably, her supposed 'boyfriend' Kuroko Tetsuya.
"ONIICHAN, YOU'RE LATE!" Natsu yelled at the top of her lungs, barging into her brother's room and immediately jumping on top of his belly.
"DAMMIT!"
"That's a yen for the swear jar!"
Hinata yawned, one hand rubbing his stomach while the other searched his pockets to give her a yen as a penalty for swearing in front of a minor. Natsu stole her brother's phone to play his card games and ran towards the living room, where the Hinatas kept a big jar to store their swear penalty money (As cute as they are, the Hinatas can swear a lot).
She threw herself on the couch, reminding herself that she has two more hours to go to her school and five minutes to play games before her brother made a mad dash for breakfast. Solitaire, boring. Freecell, nu-uh. Poker, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Natsu tapped on her brother's contact list instead.
Mum
Nats
Pink – basketball
Izumi – basketball
Kouji – soccer
Oreki – katsudon guy
Inko – volleyball
Aya – gymnastics
Eru – ice cream lady
Nakamura – 3rd year class rep
Black – basketball
Blue – basketball
Red – basketball
Green – basketball
Purple – basketball
Yellow – basketball
Oak – weird insect researcher
Tsukumo – volleyball
Onoda - bike
Nayume – old lady at the street corner
Shinji – homeless guy
Echizen – tennis
Kudo – detective
Rainbow – basketball
It was a long ass list. Her brother talks to people left and right and never stops. Natsu was hard pressed to find someone in her class that haven't been shouted a 'HELLO' by her brother.
She picked someone her brother listed as Yellow and send them something extremely mushy.
She put the phone besides her brother's breakfast plate for him to deal with the vibration onslaught.
.
[No, that was my sister pranking you, Yellow.]
Kise stopped sending his equally mushy replies.
.
Hinata checked the contents of his school bag: books, pens, charger, earphones, some tissues, no volleyball.
It felt so weird! He had gotten so used to carrying the bulging weight of his volleyball everywhere since graduating. But! It won't matter. He won't be buying another set of volleyball, he'll get to practice with the volleyball club from now on!
Hinata began shaking in his seat. Karasuno's volleyball club! He had, with Pink's help, gathered a lot of information about the club. He had spent some free time watching tournament videos since the last three years, but none of them featured Karasuno's team who has never entered the finals since the Little Giant's generation. It took Pink digging grainy uploads on the internet to find a couple videos of Karasuno's team. One was when they won the first battle in the semifinals but lost on their second battle against Dateko.
Pink, otherwise known as Momoi Satsuki, had thought that Hinata would have changed his mind when it looks like the Karasuno of this generation is weak too (she's been trying to convince her Tetsu-kun to convince Hinata to join basketball permanently but met no luck), but Hinata doesn't believe that Karasuno's current team is weak. They're just a little simple and very straight forward at the moment, but he could see that the third years were strong with their technique, especially the captain. It was also understandable that they lost; they barely have enough players to enter the tournament. Pink thought that Hinata might prefer to go to one of the top volleyball schools, but Hinata wasn't looking for a club filled with prodigies like Pink's, he wanted to enter a team that were serious in winning.
Every single member of Karasuno's players wanted to win in the videos. He could see it in their eyes—as bad as the videos quality were. Hinata holds onto the hope that their last defeat doesn't diminish that spark.
His ears picked up a quiet buzzing and Hinata recognized it to be his phone. He had put it on vibration mode, scared of the principal's warning that if their phones are being used they'll be taken away. But the teacher isn't in class yet and he saw several kids using their phones under their desks here…
Hinata looked at the name tagged on the new message. Black.
[Hinata-senpai, I apologize if I disturbed you. I simply want to ask if you're having a class on the first day of high school. I am under the impression that the first day would be hard, but Aomine-kun believes that teachers will slack off.]
[Tell Blue he's right. The teacher isn't even here yet. I'm so bored! And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Shoyo, or at least Orange? I didn't come up with our nicknames for nothing!] Hinata put his phone to sleep and peeked up, nope, still no teacher.
[You should just visit the gyms, Aomine-kun suggested. I don't think you should heed his advice, Hinata-senpai.]
Hinata debated whether to listen to his cute, small, freakishly strong kouhai, or his big, scary, also freakishly strong kouhai. Black would just sleep on the chair, unnoticed, being very lucky to never suffer the fate of getting caught by the teachers.
Hinata was never keen on the idea of sitting still. When he's taking a test, his head bobbed as he sang a song in his head. When he's relaxing, his fingers tap and tap and tap and pretend to play a piano even though he can't play any songs except Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If the teacher can't even be bothered to do their job right just because it's the first day, well.
[I can see the volleyball gym, Black!]
Hinata ran inside the gym. The door was open, but no one was there. The ball carrier peeked out from the storage room and Hinata bounced on his heels. He turned his phone on for one last time before he'll lose himself in playing his beloved sport.
[Please remain vigilant and don't make any trouble with your older years, Hinata-senpai. Have fun, then.]
He dumped his bag on one of the benches. Clad in his pants and white shirt, Hinata began to stretch. He liked stretching enough to try out gymnastics with some of the girls in his neighborhood. He got over his shyness on asking the girls for help after that match. He knew that there's nothing wrong and it's not true that girls are weak or stupider (as proven by Pink), but he sort of refused to associate himself with girls because of years of being teased that he was silly and dumb enough to join a girls' volleyball club. They never said he was silly and dumb, but they certainly think the situation is silly and dumb. Of course they're wrong, but, he got shy nonetheless.
He wishes he hadn't been so stubborn in training all alone. Yukigaoka's girls' volleyball team isn't weak at all. They have a lot of members. Sure they haven't won any nationals yet, but they entered top 16 on third year. Inko was a strong player, and she helps him a lot with his spikes. So does Tsukumo.
None of that matters now. He had submitted his club application form. He'll be playing with a real team! Before falling in love with volleyball, he used to have no preference in sports. He plays almost every sport there is. But he does love team plays way way way way better than soloes. Win or lose, the experience is shared and the hard work has more meaning. Of course, between the two, winning is obviously the preferred case.
And to win, he has to be stronger.
Hinata's hands handled the ball, and he does a short dribble with the volleyball as if he's holding a basketball. Every volleyball felt different. Even though they're just the same, some felt lighter or heavier. Some felt bigger or smaller somehow. Some just felt different, probably because it was covered with different skins. But the thumps are always the same.
He spun the ball, threw it up real high, jumped because a) he always like the jumping part and b) he always like aiming it high, and he smacked the ball. His serve wasn't powerful—his hand strength was nowhere comparable to Black's—but it was fast. He can imagine it! Woosh-ing over the blockers of the opponent team and barely grazing the libero's fingers and came down with a hard thump on the floor.
The ball flew high and the opposing team didn't even bother to run towards it. Their points were so far ahead.
1 point to the enemy. His serve was out of the court line.
"Urrrrrrrrrrgh!" Hinata's hand shot to get another ball from the carrier. Another thing he lacked that his kouhai has: Hinata's accuracy in serving is subpar. Granted, his accuracy in spiking is something his friends like to say 'deadly', but in anything else, it was below average.
He picked up another ball from the cart.
Spin. Throw. Jump.
You're part of the girls' volleyball club, right? Lucky!
The ball landed right in the middle of the opponent's court, where the libero could easily bend his knees and give a perfect receive.
He spun another ball.
Alright, I'll toss you the ball. Only for a minute okay? I'm kinda busy, man.
The ball's spin must have been disturbed because it arched awkwardly on the net, though it did land on the opponent's court.
That's not good enough in Hinata's books.
You're fundamental sucks. I'll help you, senpai.
His entire palm hit the ball, and it smashed on the other side as if it was a broad attack.
Hinata grinned to himself. Doing drills with himself is really hard and unsatisfying. He can't wait to practice spiking with a real tosser. He wiped some sweat that were forming on his neck and decided to change into his gym clothes. With the doors closed and lack of people in the gym, he easily changed into the maroon gym shirt and sweatpants that came along with the school shirt and blazer.
After he neatly folded and put them inside his bag, he went back to practicing his serves.
.
They have no coach, no libero, no ace, no decent blockers—Sawamura Daichi and his friends sighed miserably. They had met up with Kiyoko who had gathered the volleyball club application forms. A measly six.
"Alright! We're awesome!"
"Yay, we got twenty seven new first years!"
Sawamura dragged Tanaka out of the class before the second year wing spiker starts a fight with the soccer club members. Sawamura followed while Kiyoko had already gone ahead to the gym.
"We have Kageyama from Kitagawa," Sugawara said with an optimismic energy. "We have already seen his play. He'll be a good addition to the club."
"Anyone tall enough to be excellent blockers?" Someone who can cover Asahi's absence, Sawamura didn't say.
"We have three who passed 180 cm, a first year wrote that he's 190.1 cm."
"That tall? Nice!"
"Yeah. Naissu." Tanaka grinned evilly, already thinking of ways he'll try to intimidate this freakishly tall first year.
"What about the other two?"
"A second year put a note he wants to be a libero," Sugawara read. "Let's hope he'll be able to match Nishinoya-kun."
Tanaka took a look at the last form. "162 cm? This kid even added a .8!" He looked at the name. "Hinata Shouyou from Yukigaoka. His note only says SPIKE, all caps."
Sawamura chuckled at the apparent enthusiasm this first year has. "Sounds like he's gonna be a loud kid. 5' 4.1" is… okay I guess, but it's seriously short for sports like volleyball." They arrived at the gym, and Kiyoko stepped aside the entrance door for Sawamura to enter. "I really don't see how this kid is going to land a… spike."
The seniors eyes tracked the movement of the ball, thrown too high up to be ideal, and before it can even reach the acceptable level to be slammed, a pale hand swung to connect to the ball.
"OH! You're that kid who did that crazy last second jump back in Yukigaoka vs Kitagawa!" Tanaka exclaimed.
.
Hinata Shouyou wasn't great at many things.
He's good at math, but he's not a prodigy on the subject like that Kazuto he met for a while he was on vacation on Saitama. He's good at being a big brother, but Natsu still refuses to listen to him when she's scared and prefers to be comforted by their Mum. He's good at volleyball, but he hadn't even made a name for himself.
He joins in a lot of local sports matches but he never had any solid win because he was never taught the basic techniques. Every win and every loss he always fumbled at something. He athletic but clumsy, everyone would say. It was never such a big problem until his first and last real tournament.
He's good he's good he's good but he's not awesome. Why does he insist on playing volleyball when he can play something else, they'd ask. What did you do at school, Shouyou, his mum asks. I played volley, he'd answer. He's still waiting to say 'I win a match today'. He feels exhausted, and when dark thoughts lurk on the back of his head saying this-is-boring stop-the-drills can't-we-just-grow-up-and-stop-it-with-playing-volley Hinata remembers Kageyama's face close to his, separated by the net and the sharp hiss of his voice near his ears stinging What have you been doing for the past three years?
AS IF HE WAS LAZING ON HIS ASS WASTING HIS TIME LIKE—!
Hinata's hand connected on the ball and it sailed fast towards the corner of the enemy's court line, thumped hard and successfully scored himself a point.
The air felt heavy like an electrified fog. Hinata unclenched his fist and let go a deep breath. He turned to see the person who had reminded him about that disaster of a match.
Someone had his hand stretched out and his finger pointing at Hinata's way. He had a shaved head with a widow's peak, and looked every bit like a delinquent student—the black gakuran doesn't help his impression. The other student who was standing laidback on his left side had a slender build and light grey hair, and a mole under his left eye stood out. The one of the baldy's right had short dark hair and dark brown eyes. His large build and serious face immediately gives off his captain status right away.
"Oh! You're the volleyball team members! I know you guys from the videos! You're Tanaka Ryuunosuke, and Sugawara Koushi and Sawamura Daichi, right?! Amazing! I can't believe it!"
Taken aback by the enthusiasm and the sheer genuinity of the compliments Sawamura blushed and completely forgot to scold the first year for messing around the gym before school is over. Sugawara scratched his neck in embarrassment while Tanaka immediately got chummy with the boy.
"Aww, thanks shrimp! I always knew I'm that amazing! You were pretty awesome too! That jump serve was powerful!"
Hinata gave him a large grin. "I know! I'm not very good at serving, but I like to practice jump serves 'cause their way more awesome than normal serves. My hand strength isn't very strong but sometimes when I swung reeeeally hard after a perfect jump the ball went swoosh and slam on the other side before anyone even knew it!"
Their new first year talks a lot, Sawamura thought. It's nice. He can't help but feel happy a bit, his sour mood of lacking the proper people for a proper team diminishing. "We have a second year who is good at serving, I'll have him teach you to control your spin. You produced too much momentum on that jump serve, Hinata-kun."
"Oh! Just Hinata is fine, Captain!"
Sawamura smiled. "Now, now. Who said you're in the team already?"
"Eeeeeeh?! I thought we already join the team when we submit our application!"
Sugawara showed him the forms. "Submitting your forms only means that you want to join the club. Sometimes you'll immediately join the team, but most of the time, you'll have to pass a certain test before you can officially be let into teams. We don't take in just anyone you know. We want serious players."
"I'm a serious player, Sugawara-senpai!"
Someone approached them and Hinata noticed that this one is a girl and she's really pretty and she must be the manager, Kiyoko Shimizu. "You used up all of the balls in the cart. You've been in the gym since this morning, haven't you, Hinata-kun?"
Sugawara looked at the clock. 9:14. "How long have you been practicing, Hinata-kun?"
"Uuuuuuuuh, since thirty minutes past seven?"
"You skipped class?" Tanaka leaned back and upturned his nose, and he must be making that scary gangly face of his because the first year was taking step backs. "We need players, not delinquents!"
"Your face and your grades disagree with you, Tanaka."
"You're so cruel, Captain!"
"In any case," Someone threw his bag and gakuran to his hands and Hinata felt a hand on each of his shoulders and the pretty manager was shoving him outside the gym. "Please go change in the locker room and go to your second class today. You can come back to the gym for the test, Hinata-kun. Oh, before that, after your last class, go to the cafeteria to eat then you can head to the gym. Members who skip their lunch are not allowed in the gym. Understand?"
"H-Hai, Kiyoko-senpai!"
The ravenette turned to her friends. "We should also head back to our own classes now."
"Kiyoko-chan, you're amazing too!"
She pushed their first year forward and got out of the gym.
"So cold!" Despite his words, Tanaka's face was dreamy.
.
His second class starts at 9:30 so Hinata didn't arrive late. He picked the window seat, it was math class, and the teacher came exactly on time this time. Their first lesson was about exponents and though Hinata could solve the problems he was also a bit bored. He had gone ahead with some of the high school materials on math during his group study with Black and Green. And some of the times when Red joins in for math, Hinata worked extra hard in studying because Red expects no less than 100.
His kouhai was scary.
When the lesson was over Hinata stayed in his class. He liked his window seat, and he wasn't going to let someone else still think it's free and also because he knew that if he got out of the class his feet would probably drag his body to the gym or maybe the basketball gym or maybe the track field behind the second year's building.
Knowing that he'll probably make full use of the volleyball gym and train until 5 (maybe he'll push it to 6 if it's okay with the seniors) Hinata spend the 10 minute break finishing his math homework.
[It's the first day of school and we already got homework. It's math, so it's okay, but, really? Homework!]
He finished it and waited. Eventually he got bored and started to scratch his own random problems to solve. Simplify (4x-3y2)2/(2x-5y-2)(6xy3)-3 would be…
His phone buzzed. [You shouldn't have sent that to Aomine-kun, Hinata-senpai. Now he's swearing he doesn't want to go to high school.]
[I have to update you guys on high school life to prepare! You're just a twenty four months to go~!]
The bell rang and students rushed into their classes. Hinata waited, and eventually decided to pick out pictures from cloud shapes. The teacher isn't here…
"Hey, the teacher's not here. Kinda lame right?" Hinata turned away from his cloud gazing to a boy with light brown hair. "I mean, I thought high school is going to be stricter than middle school but I guess we can expect this happening a lot later. I'm Hideyoshi, by the way? You?"
"Hinata!" Hinata threw him a smile, glad to have something to spend his time with. "Where were you from, Hideyoshi-san?"
"Psssh, just call me Hide, man. I'm from Tohka middle school. You?"
"Yukigaoka!"
"Say," someone butted in their introduction. It was a rather fat boy wearing glasses. "I'm Hirano. Uh, can I ask you guys what clubs you're going to join?"
"None." Hide immediately said. "I'll probably get forced into some weird book club though. My best friend's obsessed with plot heavy novels."
"Hmm, I get bored reading books." Hirano said. "I was wondering if any of you are going to join the manga club?"
"I love manga! Though I don't read them a lot, and I don't watch anime too often. I hate sitting still. I prefer doing things."
"What club do you want to join, Hinata?" Hide asked.
"Sports! I already sent my form to the volleyball club! I already met the senior team members too, today! Hey, hey, not that I'm deciding to, but is it possible if I join multiple clubs? I kinda want to join the basketball club too. Maybe soccer, though I kinda don't like sports that forbid using hands, but I love running! I wanna race people!"
"Shorty here, thinks he can join soccer?" A rather tall, brown haired boy butted in, followed by a chestnut haired girl. "I like your energy, shorty! I'm joining the soccer club, too! Wanna go to the track field when the bell rings together?"
"Eeeh, I'm going to the volleyball gym after lunch! I already sent my form, and the captain said that we'll be holding a test to see who can stay! I'm definitely staying for volleyball!"
"Volley? I'm joining the girls team! I'm Miyamoto Rei. You're Hinata Shouyou, right?" The girl guessed correctly. "Well, that guy," she pointed to a blond guy who was leaning back on his seat, eyes closed to listen on his Walkman, "Also joins the volleyball team. You should introduce yourselves! Hey!" She called out to him. When he didn't answer she stomped her feet towards him and poked his arm. They exchanged some words and Miyamoto went back to Hinata. "Sorry, he wants to be lazy. You can meet him at practice anyway."
Hinata cocked his head to see past her and examine his fellow classmate. The blond guy was sitting but Hinata can see him to be very tall. His legs were also long, so he must be extra tall.
He silently wished that guy is a third year who is repeating. He doesn't want to believe such a tall person to be a first year.
When the bell rang, it was 1 o'clock.
See, when Hinata became friends and exchanged numbers with Momoi Satsuki, they texted each other constantly. At breakfast, between breaks, at lunch, at sports, at hobbies, at bed, at staying up late nights—their mothers got angry at them for burning out their internet quotas too fast so the two agreed to send emails filled with their days. Hinata will send his at 1 PM and Momoi will send hers at 7 PM. If one of them fails to do it, it is safe to assume that he or she is sick or in danger and should be expecting the other one to take a train straight to their homes the next day.
(It never happened by the way, strangely. They were both super punctual.)
[My mom invited Dai-chan and we had a scary movie sleepover! The plot was about moving into the house, so, predictable. And it was lame. I hate the characters! The dialogues are so awkward! Like Dai-chan! Dai-chan threatened to kiss me for that. I told him I'd burn his newest gravure magazine.
I went to search some of our potential opponents. The new first years from Chitanda middle school seem promising. Teiko's first years are good, but I don't think any of them will take away our regular positions. I'm so glad Akashi-kun kicked off those third years! I'm still amazed that Akashi-kun is captain on his first year! No other schools have done that.
I'm going to sleep now. Tell me all about your first day of high school!
I almost woke up late. The bed was just so comfortable and my back feels good but eeeeh, it's school. And it's Teiko. And I'm not going to follow Dai-chan's example so I jump up and brushed my teeth. You're gonna be jealous, Shoyou-chan, but I ate tamago kake gohan! I'm not sharing :P
Tetsu-kun is as dreamy as ever aaaaaah! He still doesn't know I take pictures of him! I'm going to send you this one, it's Tetsu-kun at his latest best angle!
OMG I think he just smiled at me!
Tetsu-kun slept on Mura-chan's lap. They look SO CUTE sleeping together! Mura-chan's usually frowning and bored, but he looks like a cuddly teddy bear when he sleeps. I think Dai-chan's jealous. Ki-chan's DEFINITELY JEALOUS.
Akashi-kun had to drag Tetsu-kun off the court before he fainted in the middle of his practice. Despite his poor stamina, Tetsu-kun always finds excuses to continue practicing, have I mentioned that? He's so amazing!
We're studying circles. I don't like it! Shouyou-chan, help meeeeee!
NEVERMIND TETSU-KUN'S STUDYING WITH ME TONIGHT, BYE!]
That's the email Pink sent at 7:03 PM last night.
Hinata began to type his reply and followed it telling her about his sudden baseball match with some of his neighborhood kids, getting a free katsudon from Oreki-san, his Mum fretting over his school schedule and bag, how he was weirdly worry-free the day before his first day of high school, Natsu's mushy prank on Yellow, skipping his first class, meeting his future Captain and Vice-cap and rival for the wing spiker position, and the friends he had managed to make just now.
Sometimes, his friends mistook them to be boyfriend and girlfriend. One time Hinata thought that they might be. But then a certain someone gave her that prize popsicle stick and stole her heart, so.
Cheerily tapping the 'send' button, Hinata shoved his stationary and phone in his bag and went to the cafeteria.
His Mum made bento, so Hinata wasn't going to buy some catering. But he did slip through the other hungry students to get the must in all of his menu: milk. It was his first day of school; meaning it's special, so Hinata bought his favorite: strawberry milk. He spotted an empty table and walked towards it.
Hinata Shouyou didn't expect to sit at the table at the same time and same place as Kageyama Tobio.
On the forgotten bag - in danger of slipping off of Hinata's slumped shoulders - where Hinata dumped his phone, it vibrates. [Hinata-senpai, Momoi-san just found out that your arch enemy attends Karasuno too.]
Happy birthday, Kuroko MUACH!